This Newcastle backyard has a music studio with it's own stage

As young children, my siblings and I were forced to put on mini piano recitals for guests visiting the house. One week it was Grandma and Grandpa, another, Aunty Beth or Dad’s friends from work.

While the audience changed, our routine was always the same: the four of us lined up in order of age in the hallway, one by wretched one marching solemnly into the formal dining room to our fate, shoes clacking on polished floorboards.

A quick bow for our fans and it was over to the piano, where shaky hands poised resentfully over porcelain keys.

Maybe things would’ve been different if we'd had an architecturally-designed music studio in the backyard with its own stage, like this home in suburban Newcastle.

Image: Brett Boardman for M3 Architecture

Operating a music teaching business out of the front bedroom of his home, the property owner knew a change was needed; there wasn’t enough privacy, and it impacted family life.

He asked M3 Architecture (led by his brother, director Michael Banney) to create a separate music space somewhere on the property; a place he could compose music and practice with students.

The result is a compact, clever and striking design that triples as a music incubator, performance space and if needed, a guest room.

The studio’s gabled front porch extends over a decked stage area for performances.

Image: Brett Boardman for M3 Architecture

“The design creates a unique backyard pedagogy – a spatial environment that enables students to drift in and out of practice and performance,” Banney explains on his site.

“The duality of the project hybridises two worlds – the high architecture of a public building, and the DIY aspect of a backyard,” he explains.

The architects took inspiration from Finnish design, in particular, architect Alvar Aalto and Finlandia Hall – a light filled space, with timber stage, white backdrop and blue audience zones compressed into a small studio.

Inside, acoustics are on point thanks to raised ceilings (at over three metres’ in height) which help reverberate sound. But if you want to take things down a notch, there is a heavy curtain fitted that can be drawn across two walls.

There is also a small bathroom at rear and a fold-out sofa bed, so this stylish studio can double as a guest room when the grand piano is rolled back.

Image: Brett Boardman for M3 Architecture

Working with a limited budget, Banney and his team utilised inexpensive materials to erect the studio, which sits next to an existing olive tree.

The walls and ceiling are made from plasterboard, while fibre cement has been applied as cladding.

M3 Architecture believe this is a public building in a family's back yard: "a fibro shed with international aspirations; a place for lessons, concerts or quiet contemplation. More than anything, it’s a place in a garden where music grows."

If only Dad had thought of this all those years ago, we might've turned out to be musical prodigies.